Bishop Bull, as I understood him (Defens. F. N. ii. 9. §11.), considers that two distinct ideas are intended by the words ousia and hupostasis, in the clause ex heteras hupostaseos e ousias; as if the Creed condemned those who said that the Son was not from the Father's essence, and those also who said that He was not from the Father's hypostasis or subsistence; as if a man might hold at least one of the two without holding the other. And in matter of fact, he does profess to assign two parties of heretics, who denied this or that proposition respectively.
Petavius, on the other hand (de Trin. iv. I.), considers that the word hupostasis is but another term for ousia, and that not two but one proposition is contained in the clause in question; the word hupostasis not being publicly recognised in its present meaning till the Council of Alexandria, in the year 362. Coustant. (Epist. Pont. Rom. pp. 274. 290. 462.) Tillemont (Memoires S. Denys. d'Alex. §15.), Huet (Origenian. ii. 2. n. 3.), Thomassin (de Incarn. iii. 1.), and Morinus (de Sacr. Ordin. ii. 6.), take substantially the same view; while Maranus (Præf. ad S. Basil. §1. tom. 3. ed. Bened.), Natalis Alexander, Hist. (Sæc. 1. Diss. 22. circ. fin.), Burton (Testimonies to the Trinity, No. 71), and [Routh] (Reliqu. Sacr. vol. iii. p. 189.), differ from Petavius, if they do not agree with Bull.
Bull's principal argument lies in the strong fact, that S. Basil expressly asserts, that the Council did mean the two terms to be distinct, and this when he is answering the Sabellians, who grounded their assertion that there was but one hupostasis, on the alleged fact that the Council had used ousia and hupostasis indifferently.
Bull refers also to Anastasius Hodeg. 21. (22. p. 343.?) who says, that the Nicene Fathers defined that there are three hypostases or Persons in the Holy Trinity. Petavius considers that he derived this from Gelasius of Cyzicus, a writer of no great authority; but, as the passage occurs in Anastasius, they are the words of Andrew of Samosata. But what is more important, elsewhere Anastasius quotes a passage from Amphilochius to something of the same effect. c. 10. p. 164. He states it besides himself, c. 9. p. 150. and c. 24. p. 364. In addition, Bull quotes passages from S. Dionysius of Alexandria, S. Dionysius of Rome (vid. below, de Decr. 25-27 and notes), Eusebius of Cæsarea, and afterwards Origen; in all of which three hypostases being spoken of, whereas antiquity, early or late, never speaks in the same way of three ousiai, it is plain that hupostasis then conveyed an idea which ousia did not. To these may be added a passage in Athanasius, in Illud, Omnia, §6.
Bishop Bull adds the following explanation of the two words as they occur in the Creed: he conceives that the one is intended to reach the Arians, and the other the Semi-arians; that the Semi-arians did actually make a distinction between ousia and hupostasis, admitting in a certain sense that the Son was from the hupostasis of the Father, while they denied that He was from His ousia. They then are anathematized in the words ex heteras ousias; and, as he would seem to mean, the Arians in the ex heteras hupostaseos.
Now I hope it will not be considered any disrespect to so great an authority, if I differ from this view, and express my reasons for doing so.
1. First then, supposing his account of the Semi-arian doctrine ever so free from objection, granting that they denied the ex ousias, and admitted the ex hupostaseos, yet who are they who, according to his view, denied the ex hupostaseos, or said that the Son was ex heteras hupostaseos? he does not assign any parties, though he implies the Arians. Yet though, as is notorious, they denied the ex ousias, there is nothing to shew that they or any other party of Arians maintained specifically that the Son was not [from] the hupostasis, or subsistence of the Father. That is, the hypothesis supported by this eminent divine does not answer the very question which it raises. It professes that those who denied the ex hupostaseos, were not the same as those who denied the ex ousias; yet it fails to tell us who did deny the ex hupostaseos, in a sense distinct from ex ousias.
2. Next, his only proof that the Semi-arians did hold the ex hupostaseos as distinct from the ex ousias, lies in the circumstance, that the three (commonly called) Semi-arian confessions of a.d. 341, 344, 351, known as Mark's of Arethusa [i.e. the fourth Antiochene'], the Macrostich, and the first Sirmian, anathematize those who say that the Son is ex heteras hupostaseos, not anathematizing the kai me ek tou theou, which he thence infers was their own belief. Another explanation of this passage will be offered presently; meanwhile, it is well to observe, that Hilary, in speaking of the confession of Philippopolis which was taken from Mark's, far from suspecting that the clause involved an omission, defends it on the ground of its retaining the Anathema (de Synod. 35.), thus implying that ex heteras hupostaseos kai me ek tou theou was equivalent to ex heteras hupostaseos e ousias. And it may be added, that Athanasius in like manner, in his account of the Nicene Council (de Decret. §20. fin.), when repeating its anathema, drops the ex hupostaseos altogether, and reads tous de legontas ex ouk onton,....e poiema, e ex heteras ousias, toutous anathematizei k. t. l.
3. Further, Bull gives us no proof whatever that the Semi-arians did deny the ex ousias; while it is very clear, if it is right to contradict so great a writer, that most of them did not deny it. He says that it is "certissimum" that the heretics who wrote the three confessions above noticed, that is, the Semi-arians, "nunquam fassos, nunquam fassuros fuisse filium ex ousias, e substantia, Patris progenitum." His reason for not offering any proof for this naturally is, that Petavius, with whom he is in controversy, maintains it also, and he makes use of Petavius's admission against himself. Now it may seem bold in a writer of this day to differ not only with Bull, but with Petavius; but the reason for doing so is simple; it is because Athanasius asserts the very thing which Petavius and Bull deny, and Petavius admits that he does; that is, he allows it by implication when he complains that Athanasius had not got to the bottom of the doctrine of the Semi-arians, and thought too favourably of them. "Horum Semi-arianorum, quorum antesignanus fuit Basilius Ancyræ episcopus, prorsus obscura fuit hæresis.....ut ne ipse quidem Athanasius satis illam exploratam habuerit." de Trin. i. x. §7.
Now S. Athanasius's words are most distinct and express; "As to those who receive all else that was defined at Nicæa, but dispute about the One in essence' only, we must not feel as towards enemies....for, as confessing that the Son is from the essence of the Father and not of other subsistence, ek tes ousias tou patros einai, kai me ex heteras hupostaseos ton huion,...they are not far from receiving the phrase One in essence' also. Such is Basil of Ancyra, in what he has written about the faith" de Syn. §41;--a passage, not only express for the matter in hand, but remarkable too, as apparently using hupostasis and ousia as synonymous, which is the main point which Bull denies. What follows in Athanasius is equally to the purpose: he urges the Semi-arians to accept the homoousion, in consistency, because they maintain the ex ousias and the homoiousion would not sufficiently secure it.
Moreover Hilary, while defending the Semi-arian decrees of Ancyra or Sirmium, says expressly, that according to them, among other truths, "non creatura est Filius genitus, sed a natura Patris indiscreta substantia est." de Syn. 27.
Petavius, however, in the passage to which Bull appeals, refers in proof of this view of Semi-arianism, to those Ancyrene documents, which Epiphanius has preserved, Hær. 73. and which he considers to shew, that according to the Semi-arians the Son was not ex ousias tou patros. He says, that it is plain from their own explanations that they considered our Lord to be, not ek tes ousias, but ek tes homoiotetos (he does not say hupostaseos, as Bull wishes) tou patros and that, energei& 139; gennetike, which was one of the divine energeiai, as creation, he ktistike, was another. Yet surely Epiphanius does not bear out this representation better than Athanasius; since the Semi-arians, whose words he reports, speak of "hui& 232;n homoion kai kat' ousian ek tou patros, p. 825 b, hos he sophia tou sophou hui& 232;s, ousia ousias, p. 853 c, kat' ousian hui& 232;n tou Theou kai patros, p. 854 c, exousi& 139; homou kai ousi& 139; patros monogenous huiou. p. 858 d, besides the strong word gnesios, ibid. and Athan. de Syn. §41. not to insist on other of their statements.
The same fact is brought before us even in a more striking way in the conference at Constantinople, a.d. 360, before Constantius, between the Anomoeans and Semi-arians, where the latter, according to Theodoret, shew no unwillingness to acknowledge even the homoousion, because they acknowledge the ex ousias. When the Anomoeans wished the former condemned, Silvanus of Tarsus said, "If God the Word be not out of nothing, nor a creature, nor of other essence, ousias, therefore is He one in essence, homoousios, with God who begot Him, as God from God, and Light from Light, and He has the same nature with His Father." H. E. ii. 23. Here again it is observable, as in the passage from Athanasius above, that, while apparently reciting the Nicene Anathema, he omits ex heteras hupostaseos, as if it were superfluous to mention a synonym.
At the same time there certainly is reason to suspect that the Semi-arians approximated towards orthodoxy as time went on; and perhaps it is hardly fair to determine what they held at Nicæa by their statements at Ancyra, though to the latter Petavius appeals. Several of the most eminent among them, as Meletius, Cyril, and Eusebius of Samosata conformed soon after; on the other hand in Eusebius, who is their representative at Nicæa, it will perhaps be difficult to find a clear admission of the ex ousias. But at any rate he does not maintain the ex hupostaseos, which Bull's theory requires.
On various grounds then, because the Semi-arians as a body did not deny the ex ousias, nor confess the ex hupostaseos, nor the Arians deny it, there is reason for declining Bishop Bull's explanation of these words as they occur in the Creed; and now let us turn to the consideration of the authorities on which that explanation rests.
As to Gelasius, Bull himself does not insist upon his testimony, and Anastasius [about 700 a.d.] is too late to be of authority. The passage indeed which he quotes from Amphilochius is important, but as he was a friend of S. Basil, perhaps it does not very much increase the weight of S. Basil's more distinct and detailed testimony to the same point, and no one can say that that weight is inconsiderable.
Yet there is evidence the other way which overbalances it. Bull, who complains of Petavius's rejection of S. Basil's testimony concerning a Council which was held before his birth, cannot maintain his own explanation of its Creed without rejecting Athanasius's testimony respecting the doctrine of his contemporaries, the Semi-arians; and moreover the more direct evidence, as we shall see, of the Council of Alexandria, a.d. 362, S. Jerome, Basil of Ancyra, and Socrates.
First, however, no better comment upon the sense of the Council can be required than the incidental language of Athanasius and others, who in a foregoing extract exchanges ousia for hupostasis in a way which is natural only on the supposition that he used them as synonyms. Elsewhere, as we have seen, he omits the word e hupostaseos in the Nicene Anathema, while Hilary considers the Anathema sufficient with that omission.
In like manner Hilary expressly translates the clause in the Creed by ex altera substantia vel essentia. Fragm. ii. 27. And somewhat in the same way Eusebius says in his letter, ex heteras tinos hupostaseos te kai ousias.
But further, Athanasius says expressly, ad Afros,--"Hypostasis is essence, ousia, and means nothing else than simply being, which Jeremiah calls existence when he says," &c. §4. It is true, he elsewhere speaks of three Hypostases, but this only shews that he attached no fixed sense to the word. [Rather, he abandons the latter usage in his middle and later writings.] This is just what I would maintain; its sense must be determined by the context; and, whereas it always stands in all Catholic writers for the Una Res (as the 4th Lateran speaks), which ousia denotes, when Athanasius says, "three hypostases," he takes the word to mean ousia in that particular sense in which it is three, and when he makes it synonymous with ousia, he uses it to signify Almighty God in that sense in which He is one.